Daniel Silva - The Secret Servant

“If Ibrahim Fawaz is a terrorist, he certainly doesn’t act like one,” Eli Lavon said. “He doesn’t engage in anything that might be construed as a rudimentary countersurveillance, and his movements are predictable and direct.”

Gabriel looked up at the map of Amsterdam on the wall, where Ibrahim’s daily routine was represented by a thick red line. It ran from his apartment in the August Allebéplein to the West Amsterdam Islamic Community Center, then to the Ten Kate Market, and finally to the al-Hijrah Mosque. Times of arrival and departure were meticulously noted and supported by photographic evidence.

“Where?” Gabriel asked. “Where should we take him?”

Lavon stood and walked over to the map. “In my learned opinion, there’s only one spot that’s suitable. Here”-he stabbed the map twice with his stubby forefinger-“at the end of the Jan Hazenstraat. He walks by there on the way home from evening prayers at the mosque. It’s reasonably quiet for Amsterdam, and if we can take out the streetlamps he’ll never see us coming.” He turned and looked at Gabriel. “When are you thinking about doing it?”

The answer came from the kitchen, where Sarah was making a fresh pot of coffee. “Tonight,” she said. “We have no choice but to take him tonight and start the interrogation.”

“Tonight?” Lavon looked at Gabriel and gave him an incredulous smile. “A year ago I was teaching this child how to walk the street like a professional. Now she is telling me that I have to kidnap a man from a densely populated European city after watching him for less than forty-eight hours.”

“Unfortunately, the child is right, Eli. We have to do it tonight and get started.”

Lavon sat down again and folded his arms. “Do you remember how long I watched Zwaiter in Rome before we even began talking about how to kill him? Three weeks. And that was for an assassination, not a kidnapping. And you know what Shamron always says about kidnap operations.”

“He says it’s much easier to leave a dead man on a sidewalk than it is to get a live one into a getaway car.” Gabriel smiled. “Shamron does have a way with words, doesn’t he?”

Sarah brought the pot of coffee to the table and sat down next to Gabriel. Lavon lit a cigarette and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling in frustration.

“The police in this city are on high alert because of the links between the Amsterdam cell and the attack in London,” he said. “We need to watch Ibrahim for at least another week. We have to plan a primary escape route, a backup escape route, and a backup to the backup escape route. We have to put the snatch zone under twenty-four-hour surveillance, so we know there won’t be any surprises on the night of the operation. Have I forgotten anything?”

“The dry runs,” said Gabriel. “We should make at least three dry runs. And in a perfect world we would do all those things. But in the real world, Elizabeth Halton has less than five days to live. We prepare as much as we can, but we take him tonight.”

“And we pray to God we all don’t end up in jail, which is what’s going to happen if we make a mistake.” Lavon gazed despondently at his wristwatch. “Let’s take a walk over to the Oud West. Who knows? It might be our last opportunity for a very long time.”

The bustling outdoor market that ran for several blocks along the Ten Kate Straat reflected the altered demographics of Amsterdam ’s Oud West neighborhood. There were dates and lentils, barrels filled with olives and chickpeas, shwarma stands and falafel vendors, and three different halal butchers. Gabriel paused briefly in the open-air shoe store and picked through a pile of counterfeit American basketball shoes, the ultimate status symbol of the young, even among the street toughs of west Amsterdam. At the stall on the opposite side of the street, Sarah was scrutinizing a canvas book bag emblazoned with the face of Che Guevara, while Lavon was feigning interest in a hooded sweatshirt that proclaimed FREE PALESTINE NOW!

Lavon looked at Gabriel and gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head, the signal that he had detected no surveillance. A moment later they were all three walking side by side toward the far end of the market. The stall where Ibrahim Fawaz worked in the afternoon was occupied by an elderly Moroccan man in a white djellaba. Sarah paused to examine an electric teakettle while Gabriel and Lavon walked on to the end of the market. On the opposite side of the street, in a drab, postwar building, was the al-Hijrah Mosque. Two bearded men were conversing outside on the pavement, under the watchful gaze of two uniformed Amsterdam policemen. Twenty yards away was a dark van with blacked out windows.

“It hasn’t moved in forty-eight hours,” Lavon said.

“Dutch security?”

Lavon nodded. “If I had to guess, I’d say they have a static post in the building across the street as well.”

Gabriel looked back toward the kitchen supplies stall and motioned for Sarah to join them. Then they turned to the left and walked along the Jan Hazenstraat. It was a quiet street lined with squat, mismatched tenement buildings and small storefronts. At the far end, overlooking a broad canal, was a tiny park with a few benches, a swing set, and a pair of rusted hobbyhorses on steel springs. Gabriel rounded the corner to the left and paused: more apartment blocks, but no storefronts or cafés, nothing that would be open after dark.

“Evening prayers begin tonight at six thirty-seven,” Lavon said. “Which means that Ibrahim will be passing by this spot at approximately seven o’clock. Once he comes around the corner, no one in the van or the static post will be able to see him. We just have to make sure we get him without making any noise. I recommend we put the getaway vehicle on this corner where the Dutch agents can’t see it. Then we have to do something that makes Ibrahim slow down long enough so that we can get him cleanly.”

Gabriel thought of the night he and Ibrahim had walked along the Amstel River together and a single image flashed in his memory-Ibrahim Fawaz lowering his gaze in disgust as two men strolled toward them arm in arm.

“He doesn’t like homosexuals,” Gabriel said.

“Few Islamists do,” Lavon replied. “What do you have in mind?”

Gabriel told him. Lavon smiled.

“To whom do you intend to give this assignment?”

“Mikhail and Yaakov,” Gabriel said without hesitation.

“Perfect,” said Eli Lavon. “But you tell them. Those boys make me nervous.”

There was no mistaking the perpetrator of the assault on the door of Nicholas Scanlon’s office. Two knocks, sharp as a tack hammer. The White House press secretary allowed ten uncomfortable seconds to elapse before looking up from his work. Melissa Stewart, NBC’s chief White House correspondent, was leaning against the doorjamb, her arms folded defiantly, her newly tinted hair tousled from her last live shot on the North Lawn.

“What’s on your mind, Melissa?”

“We need to talk.”

“No paper in the ladies’ room again?”

Stewart stepped inside the office and closed the door.

“Please come in, Melissa,” Scanlon said sarcastically. “Have a seat.”

“I’d love to, Nick, but I’m in a bit of a rush.”

“What can I do for you?”

“Confirm a story.”

Scanlon shuffled the papers on his desk and played for time. “What have you got?”

“I know who’s holding Elizabeth Halton hostage.”

“Do tell, Melissa. We’d all like to know.”

“It’s the Sword of Allah, Nick. A few days ago a DVD of Elizabeth was left in the countryside of southern England. They want Sheikh Abdullah back, and if we don’t have him on a plane bound for Egypt by Friday night, they’re going to kill her.”